250 gallons...nice! I'm already wishing I had gone bigger. My goal is to get 5 years in with this tank and upgrade. This Red Sea peninsula will surely be overgrown by then. I'm building a grow out/frag tank incase a trimming will be needed before I get to the BIG tank. I'm of course dreaming now but, if I want to build a 600 gallon custom through wall view with fish room on the back side. This will go along with some remodeling work.welcome fellow Hoosier. Im just to your east in Columbus. I don't have my tank up and running yet, but I'm helping put a 75 gallon together for a friend and have started purchasing equipment for my own 250 gallon build. Welcome to the party!
Exactly! Mark's wife is sending me the "coral reefer" plaques from Mark's stand and canopy. I'm combing those with a picture to be placed with the new tank as a tribute. I know Mark would love this tank. I so much wish I could share it with him in person. Hopefully he's looking down seeing all the action. Back in the 90's he and I always had various tanks up and running. It was always so much fun when a new build would come along and we'd team up on it and sink in all the best ideas we could come up with together.
Sad bjt great that you were able to get his tank! I am starting again after 20 years and my tank has been cycked for 2 weeks now. Very pumped, worried, exited, nervous etc haha. Really didnt think I would ever start another reef tank but here we are! My son who was just a young child back then was talking about how gorgeous he remembered my tank was and that sparked the memory that led to action. Good luck on your tank and its Awesome btw! Your friend would be proud im sure!Greetings RSR,
Hello, John here introducing myself from Nashville Indiana. I am returning to the hobby after a 20 year hiatus. Back in the 90's I successfully kept a 120gal long with sps and clams under MH and VHO lighting. I was very proud of that tank but had to let it go for grad school. My wife (Donna) has been reluctant over the following years to let me have another reef tank remembering the work it requires to do it right. Tragedy intervened when a very good friend of ours passed away suddenly. His widow didn't know what to do with his reef tank in Marathon Florida and called me. She explained "I know it's crazy to think of coming to Florida to get this, but I know Mark would have wanted you to have it. I'll understand if you don't want it but thought of you first." You might say not everyone would be willing to drive from Southern Indiana to Marathon Florida, tear down a 120g tank with livestock, load it in a 1/2ton pickup, drive 24 hours straight and set it all back up. I wasn't sure I was, but it was more about honoring my friend that got me into reefing in the first place and introduced me to the Florida Keys over 20 years ago. This led to my passion for scuba diving as well. I was ready to come back to reefing and I couldn't think of a more poetic way of doing than to take my friends tank he had recently setup. His wife was very pleased we decided to take it. While the DIY Canopy/Stand really grew on me, I couldn't fit it in the truck unfortunately and while it fit perfectly into Florida Keys motif, it wouldn't have worked as well in our home. This led me to my journey of setting up a new tank for which I could trust for some years to come. I choose the Red Sea Reefer P500 (132gal total volume) peninsula tank. Marks equipment and livestock gave me a very good head start back into the hobby. We have dedicated the build in his honor and it is coming along nicely. As we all know, patients in the name of the game. I'm very happy with the aquascaping and have added 23 fish after a prolonged QT period. The first batch of corals went in at 5 months from start and doing well. I look forward to posting picks after some growth hits pleasing levels. Below are a few pictures from the move of "Coral Reefer" from Marathon to Nashville Indiana.
Cheers,
John
Mark's "Coral Reefer" build. Mark was a man of limited financial means toward the end of his life and thus did a lot of DYI to which he was very proficient. He didn't have the tank up very long and it ran for another 2 months with minimal husbandry. I was surprised it looked as good as it did. Mark hadn't started adding corals yet and thus looking like a baron 200 lbs pile of Florida live lock with a couple rock anemones and 5 fish including a pair of Ocellaris clownfish we affectionately named Bonnie and Clyde after the trip home (that's another story). All the livestock made the journey given we kept heaters and power heads running during the trip.
A little bit of Mark's handy work on the DIY canopy.
My lovely wife being a real trooper on the tear-down.
Thanks for the kind words and may your tank cycle well! I cycled for 5 months before adding coral but it seems to be paying off. I used bacterial to seed then slowly added fish over 3 months as they came out of QT protocols. Lights turned on at 4.5 months. Corals are all looking very happy with good polyp extension. I have one potential problem that has worried me worried at the moment. My coral beauty has been nipping my acans;Nailbiting. Not very hard or often but enough to be a problem in my opinion - sigh. I pulled the acans back over to the QT tank. Just got a load of coral from WWC in with an another acan, favites, and aussie lord. I'm worried for those too. If I see a nip, I'll have to move those too and try to catch this coral slime bandit. I had a few different dwrarf angles in the past with no problem but we didn't have acans and lords back then either that I recall of anyway. My how this hobby has advanced!
No time like the present
It goes back to the trip home from Florida. We woke up in Marathon Florida on a beautiful Friday morning, ate breakfast at the Stuffed Pig, and headed back to Mark's to start tearing down the tank at 9am. 8 hours later, we had everything packed in the truck and ready to leave at 5pm. 17 hours later into the drive (now Saturday morning), we're on the home stretch of the drive, we stop for gas and snacks. It was rather chilley in Kentucky. We still had the same t-shirts, shorts on as when we started tearing down the tank back in warm sunny Florida 25 hours ago. By now we were quite unsavory looking characters. This thought came into my mind. I imained my wife and I looking like bank robbers as walked into the store. In reality probably more like somewhere on the spectrum typical Wal-Mart shoppers (no offense to Wal-Mart shoppers) but anyway... I turned around and looked in the crew cab area of our truck cab where we had the trash cans of livestock. In the center can on pump and heater life support, swimming gingerly against the current of the power head were Mark's paired Ocellaris clowns. They apeared as if they were casual, calm and perfectly happy for the ride. That's when I said... "Bonnie and Clyde"
Glad its working out for you! I thought I was going to get lucky and pass up the diatoms but NOPE haha my tank is a lovely brown today lol. Yes it has changed a bunch hasnt it? I dont even remember quarantining fish and corals back then lol. I. Just glad that im able to access so much info, it should help me to get back on the horse. I probably should have waited a bit but I bought a few Zoanthids to try out and they are awesome! I didnt have zoanthids in the past. Well keep up the good work and enjoy your tank!
